ROBERT LEWISSTUDYGUIDE

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CURRICULUM AREASGallipoli is a rich resource to support the study of the expe-rience of Australians and others in the First World War. It is appropriate for middle-upper secondary students. It can be used in a variety of curriculum areas:

• History• Society and environment• Time, change and continuity• English issues (War, Leadership, Confl ict)• Civics and citizenship• Values education• Media studies.

BEFORE WATCHING THE FILM

1 BrainstormGallipoli is a very important part of Australia’s history and identity. Brainstorm to identify what you know about Gal-lipoli.

From the information and ideas you collect, write a few sentences to draw it all together, and make a statement about the meaning and signifi cance of Gallipoli in Australia today.

Keep this statement – you will be asked to look back at

INTRODUCTION Gallipoli (Tolga Örnek, 2005) is a 120-minute documentary about the campaign at Gallipoli in the First World War. It traces the campaign from its inception, through the invasion, to the fi nal failure and retreat. It looks in detail of the experience of the Australian, British, New Zealander and Turkish leaders and soldiers. It focuses in particular on the experiences of several individuals as well as the larger picture, and uses historical reconstructions or re-enactments extensively to bring a sense of being ‘on the spot’ now for a modern audience.

TOLGA ÖRNEK, THE DIRECTOR

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it later and see if any of your information and ideas have changed.

2 Creating your representation

From the brainstorm information, summarize very briefl y what your image is of these aspects of Gallipoli:

• the nature of the fi ghting• the Australian soldiers there• other troops involved• the leaders.

What you have done in the two questions above is to out-line your representation of Gallipoli.

History is about stories – telling who we are, and how we came to be that way.

There are many stories that could be told – far more than could ever be put in a history textbook, or a museum. The history of Australia, for example, is made up of many mil-lions of stories over thousands of years.

So textbook writers, museum curators, archivists, fi lmmak-ers – anyone who seeks to tell the stories of Australia’s history – have to select those stories that they think are the most important, or most typical, or most revealing of who we are. They create a representation of history – one person’s view based on what they see as signifi cant, what

they choose to include and to exclude.

This choice is necessary, but also controversial. Whose sto-ries do you include? Whose stories do you exclude? What ideas or themes or events are more important than others?

Gallipoli is a representation of what happened at Gallipoli – a version of the story created by one person or a group of people. You will be able later to compare your exist-ing ideas, your current representation of history, with that created by the fi lmmakers, and to see how your image or representation might have changed as a result of exploring the fi lm.

Making a documentary fi lm

Gallipoli is a documentary fi lm. Most documentaries have these features:

• a purpose – what the fi lmmaker wants the audience to take away from the fi lm (such as to present information about an issue in a neutral way, or to take a particular view and persuade people to accept that view)

• a body of information – the material that is available to use in telling the story in the fi lm (including photo-graphs, fi lm, experts, charts, maps, etc.).

• a structure – the way in which the information and nar-rative are organized to tell the story (such as, chrono-logically, or through ‘fl ashbacks’)

• a style or treatment – the way the information is pre- 3

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sented (this could involve a realistic approach, or a reconstruction, or using techniques to create an image or impression rather than being realistic, etc.)

• an emphasis (choosing which elements of the story to emphasize or focus on).

3 Imagine

Imagine that you have been asked to make a documentary about some controversial and signifi cant aspect of history that happened nearly 100 years ago. Many people have made documentaries about this event in the past. You want your documentary to stand out. How will you do it? Discuss:

• the purposes that might exist for making this fi lm, • the types of information that might be available to you• the ways that you could structure the story• the different style or treatment of the information you

might use to create an impact• the main emphasis that you might stress in your docu-

mentary.

Decide which approaches you would choose to help make your documentary appeal to the audience.

As you look at Gallipoli ask yourself what choices the fi lm-maker has made for the above elements. For example, has the fi lmmaker just shown photographs, or is there a particu-lar way the photographs are presented? Has the fi lmmaker used music to create a particular effect? Has the fi lmmaker used an all-knowing narrator to tell us the story, or is there a different way of getting the information to us?

The questions that follow will help you think about these aspects. Table 1 will help you follow the sequence of events described in the fi lm.

EXPLORING ISSUESGallipoli is a long and detailed fi lm. It covers the campaign in a chronological way. This guide suggests that teachers would show the fi lm through, breaking occasionally to have students answer the relevant questions in the fi rst section (The story), and then discussing the questions under the other headings after having watched the fi lm.

1914

Aug 4 Australia enters the First World War

Oct 31 The Ottoman Empire becomes an ally of Germany in the war

Nov 1 The fi rst convoy of troops leaves Australia for the war

Dec 3 This Australian convoy arrives in Egypt for training

1915

March 18 British and French naval forces fail to force a way through the Dardanelles

April 25 The landing of allied troops at Anzac Cove (Z Beach), Cape Helles (S), V, W, X and Y beaches

May 24 One day truce to bury the dead after the great Turkish at-tacks

Aug 6 – 9 The Battle of Lone Pine

Aug 7 The charge at the Nek

Aug 29 The end of the August offensive

Dec 7 A decision is reached to evacuate Gallipoli

Dec 19 - 20 Completion of the evacuation of Australians from Gallipoli

TABLE 1

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The storyPlan

1 We ‘meet’ several individuals – from England, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand – early in the fi lm. Why does each enlist in the war?

2 Why did the British want to seize the capital of the Otto-man Empire, Constantinople (Istanbul)?

3 What was their naval plan to achieve that?4 Why did that plan fail?5 What was their revised invasion plan?

Landing

6 What happened at each of the various landing points (V, W, X and Y beaches, Anzac Cove and Helles?

7 What were the main features or characteristics of the landings?

8 Why did the landings not achieve their overall aim by the end of the fi rst day?

Life on Gallipoli

9 What are the main features of everyday life on Gallipoli after the landing?

10 There are several fi erce battles during May. Describe the nature or characteristics of this fi ghting.

11 There are important Australian, New Zealand and British attacks in August. Briefl y describe what happens at Lone Pine, The Nek and Suvla.

Evacuation

12 What were winter conditions like on Gallipoli?13 How were the troops fi nally withdrawn?

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Men at war

14 Gallipoli focuses on the lives of several individuals. Look at this extract from an interview with the filmmaker where he explains his reasons for doing this:

ANDREW DENTON: It’s interesting, you actually have told this story particularly through the diaries of 10 men, how did you choose them? What did they have in common?

TOLGA ÖRNEK: Well, first of all, we wanted the characters to be diverse. We wanted the characters to be representa-tive of all the soldiers in the campaign. We wanted to have an officer. We wanted to have a person who came there for king and country, a person who came there just because it was sheer duty. A person who came there and hated each minute of it. We wanted the soldiers to sort of represent the whole spectrum of the soldiers at Gallipoli, and we also had a technical aspect. Obviously the soldiers had to have had to fight for a while in Gallipoli. I didn’t want to pick any sol-diers who got off the boat and just got killed, because we wanted to show the transformation in their personality and in their character and how the battle changed them.

ANDREW DENTON: Normally, the stories of war are told in terms of movement of battalions, but diaries describe the tiniest moments in people’s lives. What are some of those moments that stay with you?

TOLGA ÖRNEK: Well, I mean the diaries are so evocative and so powerful that each life – I mean each page is filled with suffering and the constant presence of death. And it’s hard to cope with that. And when you read the diaries you really appreciate the horrific conditions of the campaign – the flies, the dysentery, the heat, the flood, the cold. And each line stays with you. After a while it becomes very depressing, because you’re reading suffering day in and day out.

(www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1353500.htm)

Do you think it is an effective technique?

15 One of the most interesting characters is Guy Nightin-gale. Look at the quotations from him during the course of the film. What are his initial attitudes and values towards war? To help you with this question draw up a table like Table 2, and use it to summarize the informa-tion. Do any of these surprise you – such as his attitude towards fighting? How do his attitudes and values change during the war?

16 There is a great amount of detail in the film on the Turk-ish soldiers. Why do you think the film would give them such emphasis? Do you think this is effective?

17 There is also great emphasis in the film on the families of soldiers. Why do you think there is this emphasis? Is it effective?

Comment

What this tells us about his attitudes and values

TABLE 2

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Techniques

18 Before you watched the film you thought about how the filmmaker might create his representation of the events. Table 3 shows some of the techniques used in the film, and also the alternatives that were available, but not used. Comment in each case on why you think the film-maker chose the version he did, and whether you think it was a good choice. You may also add some other elements to this list. The material from the filmmakers may help you think about the ideas and issues raised in the table.

THE FILMMAKERS ON GALLIPOLI

Mistake, blunder, disease and death in the trenches. End of the ‘romance’ of war.

On April 25th, an allied army made up of soldiers from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, India, and France landed to capture Gallipoli. Turkish soldiers aided by their Ger-man allies dug in to defend their homeland. For 9 months opposing armies attacked and counterattacked each other in a fierce struggle that challenged not only the soldiers’ endurance but also their humanity. They battled with each other; with disease; with the harsh climate and terrain; with the horrific sights of modern warfare, which was very differ-ent from what they had expected. Despite their hardships, the soldiers went on with unprecedented dignity, courage,

and tenacity. They captured their experience in thousands of diaries, letters, and photographs. This is their story told through their own words …

The war itself is the only ‘enemy’ in this film …

Tolga Örnek, the film’s writer and director, emphasizes that the film focuses on the human aspects of the campaign and portrays the emotions, fears, and sufferings of the ordinary soldiers in the trenches, without any discrimina-tion of religion, language or race. The battle is being told through the diaries and letters of two British, three New Zealand, three Australian and two Turkish soldiers selected from hundreds of soldiers who have served in the cam-paign. The film aims to portray the historical importance of Gallipoli based on facts, and from the perspectives of common soldiers who are representative of the thousands

Technique used The alternative/s, rejected by the filmmaker

Flat, two-dimensional historical photographs are manipu-lated to create a 3D image.

‘All-knowing’ narrators tell the story.

The camera does not just show photographs in a static way; it roams over them, focusing on particular parts of them.

Reconstructions or re-enactments are filmed and shown in colour.

Music is used to manipulate the viewer’s emotional reac-tions.

Reconstructions are generalized, creating an impression rather than accurate detail.

Expert commentators are interviewed, but not on the loca-tion of the aspect they talk about.

Character voices read historical extracts.

TABLE 3

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of soldiers from both sides. To achieve this the fi lmmakers have used thousands of diaries, letters and documents. Mr. Örnek also states that many of the previous productions have overlooked ‘the other side’ and have failed to capture the human dimension within the general structure of the campaign. This ‘human dimension’ is what he says makes the campaign ‘an epic’: the honor, bravery, and tenacity of all the sides fi ghting for their countries in a confl ict fueled not by hate but by a sense of duty.

A production spanning six years and seven countries.

Gallipoli is the outcome of a six-year effort which was produced in seven countries around the globe. More than seventy archives in the UK, Germany, France, Rus-sia, Australia, Austria, New Zealand and Turkey have been researched and more than twenty international historians have been consulted to make the fi lm as historically rich and accurate as possible. Never before seen diaries, letters, and photographs from both sides; interviews with inter-national experts; on-location landscape, underwater, and aerial photography; 3D computer animations; and dramatic re-enactments of trenches and battles, make this docu-drama not only the newest fi lm on the subject, but also the most comprehensive. In order to become also the most balanced portrayal of the subject, the fi lm has been pro-duced in association with Australian War Memorial, Imperial War Museum, New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Herit-age, and the Çanakkale Naval Museum. The consultants for the fi lm include the top experts in their fi eld such as: Les

Carlyon, Kenan Çelik, Ashley Ekins, Peter Stanley, Peter Hart, Norman Itzkowitz, Robin Prior, Christopher Pugsley, and Nigel Steel. The fi lm also breaks new ground with its format, becoming one of the fi rst documentaries to use the High Defi nition system and Super 16mm together, and then transferring the whole picture to 35mm for theatrical release in Turkey, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Production

Principal photography began in April 2004 with three teams shooting simultaneously in New Zealand, Australia and Gallipoli. In July 2004 a crew of six traveled to Australia and New Zealand to shoot interviews and the collections in the Australian War Memorial, New Zealand National Library, and other institutions. The main four-week shoot began in September in Turkey, which consisted of reenactments, in-terviews, landscape shots, and aerial and underwater pho-tography. The fi lmmakers tried to accurately recreate the battlefi eld by using maps and layouts from the campaign. A special exterior set was built outside the town of Çanakkale where detailed Turkish and allied trenches and dugouts were constructed. More than ninety extras took part in the dramatic reenactments. The special effects team rigged the set for many scenes involving explosions and machine gun fi re, and also recreated the harsh four seasons of the peninsula. Finally in early October, the Gallipoli landscape was fi lmed from the air with the special WESCAM system.

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Post-production

The film’s extensive post-production involving editing, sound design, visual effects, and special photographic animations was done in Turkey, Germany, and the US over a period of five months.

Talent

Using the voices of international stars such as Academy Award Winner™ Jeremy Irons and Sam Neill, as well as many talented American, Australian, and British actors, the filmmakers brought the personal accounts of the soldiers to life. With a haunting original film score composed by Demir Demirkan and performed by the Prague Symphony

Orchestra, Gallipoli is a tribute to the valor and self-sacrifice of the thousands who fought, suffered and died for their countries.

(www.turkcine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=88&Itemid=1)

Meaning and messages

19 The film several times focuses on battles where men who are about to go into action know they will die – yet they still go. One example of this is at The Nek. Why do you think soldiers in that situation accept it and go to their death in this way?

20 The film also several times looks at leadership, and at the men who devise plans that they know will send many men to certain death. How do you think leaders can do this? Is the attitude of the filmmaker consistent in the way he shows this – for example, does his at-titude towards Mustafa Kemal ordering men to die differ from that towards the British leaders?

21 What is the main image of war that the film presents? List the main words that are in your mind after watching the film.

22 A common image of war presented by films about the Australians is their bravery. Many films stress the brav-ery of the diggers at the landing, or feature the work of John Simpson in rescuing many wounded soldiers under fire, or stress the action at Lone Pine where the Australians won seven Victoria Crosses. Does this film 9

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stress such individual bravery? Or does the image you have identifi ed in the previous question dominate and set the tone?

23 The narrator says that while men saw terrible things and did terrible things, they never lost humanity. Does the fi lm effectively portray this idea to you?

24 Gallipoli is a key element in Australia’s image of itself – far more so than other countries, except perhaps Turkey and New Zealand. Why is this? Look at the following information and discuss the reasons you can discover to explain this.

SOURCE A: FIRST NEWSPAPER ACCOUNT OF THE LANDING

The Australians rose to the occasion. Not waiting for orders, or for the boats to reach the beach, they sprang into the sea, and, forming a sort of rough line, rushed at the enemy’s trenches. Their magazines were not charged, so they just went in with cold steel. It was over in a minute. …

Then the Australians found themselves facing an almost perpendicular cliff of loose sandstone, covered with thick shrubbery. Somewhere, half-way up, the enemy had a sec-ond trench, strongly held, from which they poured a terrible fi re on the troops below. …

Here was a tough proposition to tackle in the darkness, but those colonials, practical above all else, went about it in a practical way. They stopped for a few minutes to pull themselves together, got rid of their packs, and charged their magazines. Then this race of athletes proceeded to

scale the cliffs without responding to the enemy’s fi re. They lost some men but did not worry. In less than a quarter of an hour the Turks were out of their second position, either bayoneted or fl eeing. …

A serious problem was getting the wounded from the shore. … The courage displayed by these wounded Australians will never be forgotten. Hastily placed in trawl-ers, lighters and boats, they were towed to the ships, and, in spite of their sufferings, cheered on reaching the ship from which they had set out in the morning. The cour-age displayed by these wounded Australians will never be forgotten. … In fact, I have never seen anything like these wounded Australians in war before. Though many were shot to bits, without the hope of recovery, their cheers resounded throughout the night. … They were happy because they had been tried for the fi rst time and had not been found wanting.

Argus, Melbourne, 8 May 1915

SOURCE B

It was there that our young and untried troops ... given as their baptism of blood a task before which veteran soldiers might well have blanched, [ac]quitted themselves as men, and gained the plaudits of the world. They might have done equally valiant work, almost unnoticed, amidst the vast armies in Belgium or France; but Gallipoli provided a conspicuous theatre for their achievement, and focused [on them] the attention of the world. 10

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SOURCE C

1915. Australia’s entry into the Company of nations – no fi ner entry into history ... to have leapt into Nationhood, Brotherhood and Sacrifi ce at one bound ... what a year: – never can Australia see its like again.

SOURCE D

The price of nationhood must be paid in blood and tears. ... Before the ANZACs astonished the watching nations, ... we were Australian in name, and we had a fl ag, but ... gener-ally speaking, it was assumed that Australia only lived by the grace of England. ... ANZAC Day has changed all that ... [and] we are at last a nation, with one heart, one soul ... There is mourning in our homes and grief in our hearts, and the fl ower of our youth will not return to us ... [but] the spirit of our dead heroes has come home across the seas ... to whisper that we have taken our place among the nations.

(Sources B-D – Extracts from 1916 ANZAC Day articles in Australian newspapers)

25 Why has ANZAC Day lasted and indeed grown as an Australian national day? Here is one person’s explana-tion of why ANZAC Day has remained signifi cant to Australians over time. Read it and identify the different elements mentioned. For example, you might summa-rize the fi rst paragraph’s ideas as ‘A need for a myth’.

Every nation seems to need a myth, or an image of itself, that it can look to with pride and recognition. The message is not necessarily ‘I am that person’, but rather ‘I am part of the society which can produce that person, and I share in those qualities.’ The image or myth has to be based in some reality, but that reality need not be common to all those who share in it.

Australia had no experience on the world stage before 1914. People were anxious about who they were, and how they would stand when tested against the established order.

The soldiers fought with skill and courage. That is the essential element.

But then the deeds occurred; they were reported in a particular way; the audience was responsive to these reports, and they struck a chord.

All Australians were involved – while the fi rst army was only 50,000 men, virtually everybody in Australia had some connection – as relative, friend, or work-mate – of someone in that army. So it was a representative body. The soldiers accepted the praise, and it provided a standard for them for the rest of the war – survivors wore a brass A for ANZAC on their sleeve for the rest of the war, making it obvious to all that they were considered special.

Right from the fi rst ANZAC Day in 1916 messages of national identity and pride were being expressed. These sorts of ideas were echoed in The ANZAC Book, a collec-tion of drawings and articles from Gallipoli which was sold throughout Australia.

The day became an offi cial national holiday in the 11

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1920s, and school children read about the feats of the ANZACs in their school readers.

In the Second World War many of the first recruits were the sons of ANZACs, and they saw themselves as carrying on the traditions. They also provided ‘new blood’ for the ANZAC Day ceremonies and marches.

Then the ANZAC tradition began to decline. In the 1960s a famous and influential play by Alan Seymour, The One Day of the Year, brutally represented ANZAC Day as an occasion for a few old diggers to make public fools of themselves as they became embarrassingly drunk.

During the 1970s peace slogans were painted on the Melbourne Shrine on the eve of ANZAC Day, and much attention was paid to feminist/pacifist anti-ANZAC Day marches.

In 1987 the ‘Welcome Home’ parade for Vietnam veter-ans seemed to show a change in attitude towards recogni-tion of Australians’ military service.

The 75th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli in 1990 and the associated pilgrimages again focused attention on the few remaining Gallipoli veterans.

The 1995 Australia Remembers year for the 50th anni-versary of the ending of World War II also focused attention on Australia’s military heritage.

In the 1980s and 1990s crowds watching the parade were growing rather than declining, and there were many young people attending dawn ceremonies. The wars are an important and popular part of most States’ and Ter-ritories’ secondary school curricula, and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the Australian War Memorial have produced many important collections of documents and resources for a study of the wars.

During the 1990s and early 2000s Australia became increasingly involved in popular and effective peacekeep-ing missions, such as in East Timor, and this created a very popular image of the Australian military and its traditions and place in Australian society.

(Adapted from material on www.anzacday.org.au)

26 The explanation above talks about the changing nature of Australians’ attitudes towards ANZAC Day – it has not always been so popular and accepted. What situa-tions could occur in Australian society that might influ-ence how Australians see Gallipoli and ANZAC Day in the future? See if you can identify some circumstances or developments that might strengthen the day in popu-lar identity, and some that might weaken it.

27 ANZAC Day is still celebrated in Australia – but how? What is emphasized? Has this changed since 1916? Look at the next ANZAC Day. Watch the march, in person or on television. Try to attend the Dawn Serv-ice, and any local commemorative activities. How are events reported in the newspapers and on television? What is happening? What are the messages and the values which are being presented?

Look for such aspects as:• What is done? (e.g. people march, lay wreaths, etc.)

• Who does these things?• When?• Where?• What words are used?• What music is used?• What ceremonies are performed?• How do people react?• What messages are presented?• Is anyone not involved?• Is anyone opposed to what is happening?• What do popular commentators say about it?• How do the media report it?• How does your school react to it?And so on.

Representations

28 Before you watched the film Gallipoli you recorded your ideas about or representation of war and of Australia and Gallipoli. Has watching the film influenced or changed your understanding of Gallipoli and ANZAC Day in any way?

29 Another recent documentary film about Gallipoli is Revealing Gallipoli (Wain Fimeri, 2005). Watch this film, and compare the way it presents the events in compari-son to Gallipoli. Discuss the similarities and differences. You could also watch the feature film Gallipoli (Peter Weir, 1981), and compare all three approaches. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each?

This study guide was produced by ATOM. For more infor-mation about ATOM study guides, The Education Shop, The Speakers’ Bureau or Screen Hub (the daily online film and television newsletter) visit our web site: www. metromagazine.com.au or email: damned@netspace.net.au

Notice: An educational institution may make copies of all or part of this Study Guide, provided that it only makes and uses copies as reasonably required for its own educational, non-commercial, classroom purposes and does not sell or lend such copies.

Gallipoli is distributed by Ronin Films in Australia and New Zealand.PO Box 1005, Civic Square, ACT 2608Tel (02) 6248 0851 Fax (02) 6249 1640

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